OpenGL 4.1, released earlier this week, links with OpenCL and OpenGL ES 2.0 more than ever before, simplifying cross-platform development and bridging the gap between mobile and desktop development. More than four months after Khronos Group enabled a bunch of speed tweaks and graphic improvements in OpenGL 4.0, paving the way for next-gen graphics on the latest GPUs, the industry consortium has updated the royalty-free OpenGL specification to catch up with Microsoft’s proprietary but prevalent DirectX 11 runtime.

Khronos Group also released ARB extensions that promise OpenGL 4.1 functionality on legacy GPUs, at least to a certain extent. Other new functionalities in the core OpenGL 4.1 specification include the ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time, the capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility, 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs for higher geometric precision, and multiple viewports for a rendering surface for increased rendering flexibility, the official press release noted.

Christian’s Opinion

OpenGL 4.1 isn’t a game-changer but it’ll help close the gap between itself and DirectX 11. Unfortunately, by the time OpenGL 4.1-enabled games and apps arrive, the graphics industry will be talking up DirectX 12. Nevertheless, OpenGL 4.1 has at least gotten on par with Direct X 11.

The easily overlooked significance of this release is OpenGL ES 2.0 integration. This means that developers will be able to write desktop apps using OpenGL 4.1 and then scale down their projects for mobile GPUs powering high-end semaphores that mostly support OpenGL ES 2.0 specification. What this gives you is a simplified development, faster time to market, and more feature parity between desktop and mobile apps.